flowers bloom at midnight
by Someone aka Me
Summary: In the darkness of war, Anthony finds out what he is capable of, and what lengths he will go to protect those who cannot protect themselves. For Karyn.


For Karyn, who won HPHG2 in 2015. This is three years late, because every time I tried to start it, I became afraid that it would go terribly horribly wrong. I really hope it hasn't. I wanted to give you something perfect.

Thanks to Em for the help.

Assignment 12: Muggle Studies: Task 1, canines: write about someone loyal

* * *

Anthony isn't sure how this happened.

Well.

That isn't exactly true.

He remembers September.

He remembers the Sorting, so much smaller than usual without any Muggleborns. He remembers watching the new Ravenclaws, some of whom looked so scared and so _small_.

He remembers wishing that Hogwarts didn't have to be a scary unknown for them, but he couldn't reassure them, because this year Hogwarts was a scary unknown for all of them, no matter how old.

But he never really asked to be a part of a student rebellion.

Then again, he never really thought he'd need to.

But then the new first years had walked into the common room and they'd looked so overwhelmed and so _small_ and the fifth year prefect who was supposed to be talking to them, Molly Allen, was trembling because Alecto Carrow had stared her down on her way out of the Great Hall and Anthony couldn't help it. He knew he was the oldest one in the room and he was the eldest Prefect and maybe that meant he had a job to do.

He steps forward, claps Molly on the shoulder in encouragement, and says calmly, "Welcome to Ravenclaw. This year is going to be interesting, so here are my words of wisdom — supposed to be what we're known for, right?" He looks at the crowd of first years, takes a deep breath. "Keep your head down. Be smart. Don't draw attention from the wrong people. Remember that intelligence is about more than books — it's about making smart choices." He breathes.

"Remember that you can learn something from every situation, if only you keep your eyes open. And you can come to me with any problems."

He stuffs his hands in his robe pockets, rocking back. He doesn't love talking in front of groups.

"Any questions?"

The first years blink at him. He wonders if he's scared them. He wonders if that's a bad thing.

"Right," he says. "Well. Um. Girl's dorms are that way and boy's dorms are that way. First years are at the top. Now is a good time to get settled."

The first years slowly disperse, and Anthony loosens his tie and pulls it over his head. Tossing it over the back of a chair, he sinks down into a seated position with a sigh. Morag smiles at him wryly. "Nice speech, Professor."

Anthony scowls, but it has no heat.

Padma shrugs from beside Morag. "It was probably better than I would've done."

And that's… probably true. Padma's essays are a work of art, and given the time to sit down and write it she could give a speech that moves mountains, but extemporaneous speaking isn't really her forte.

…

So it starts like that, but it doesn't really start to spiral until the day that first year Liam Harris comes back from detention and starts sobbing.

Terry is the one who walks over and sits down beside him, because Terry is in a lot of ways the kindest of them all. After a moment, he embraces Liam, his grip firm around the young boy.

Terry's voice is low and so is Liam's and Anthony can't make anything out until Terry's face turns into a mask of horror and his voice rises as he says, "They did _what_?"

Anthony moves closer, and Liam is crying harder and he is trembling and Anthony feels a flare of rage, because this is not what Hogwarts is supposed to be.

"She was laughing," Liam is saying. "Laughing and calling me a liar. I couldn't… It was all I could hear. I didn't know what to do so I just… I just thought about the Charms essay we have due, started writing it in my head. When I stopped screaming she got bored and told me to leave."

Terry's voice is shaky as he says, "You did the right thing. We'll… we'll send a Prefect to Madam Pomfrey for a potion for the after effects, okay?"

Liam nods.

"Morag?" Terry raises his voice just slightly. "Could you bring that blanket over here?"

Morag does without questioning and Terry discusses something with her in a low voice, and then he stands and she sits, helping Liam wrap himself in the blanket.

Terry moves toward Anthony. "How much did you hear?" he asks in an undertone.

"They _tortured_ him?"

Terry nods. His face looks broken apart. He feels everything so strongly — it's something Anthony has always appreciated about him. Where Anthony can get lost in the facts, Terry never forgets the people behind the facts: the human lives.

"The Cruciatus," he says, and Anthony goes cold.

"He's _eleven_." His teeth are gritted as he tries to hold in the fury that washes over him.

"I don't think they care," Terry says.

Anthony doesn't know what he was expecting when he saw the Carrows at the staff table, but it wasn't this. At least not so soon.

"I'll go to Pomfrey," he says. Padma pops up at his shoulder, startling him.

"I'll go with you," she says. He didn't even know she was listening.

He hesitates, and then nods. "Yeah, okay. Easier to call it a patrol that way."

They slip out of the common room entrance in silence as Terry makes his way back to Liam.

…

That night, Anthony bows his head a little more deeply and spends a little longer on his prayers than he normally does.

He wants to understand.

Anthony isn't Orthodox by any means — he does his homework on Shabbat and it's impossible trying to figure out if _anything_ at Hogwarts is kosher. But he observes the major holidays and he tries to pray daily and that's more religion than he's seen from any of his friends. All of them are atheist, except maybe Padma, who takes some time now and then to talk to her gods, when she needs to.

But Anthony believes.

He believes in God, and he believes in God's plan.

But he doesn't understand how the torture of an eleven-year-old could fit into that plan.

He asks for understanding where it can be granted and the grace to accept what he cannot understand and the faith to believe that this, too, has a purpose.

Sometimes it's hard to believe in divine providence when it feels like the world he knew is falling apart.

But sometimes things need to fall apart so that they can heal.

...

And that's how it starts, really.

It's Anthony and Terry and Morag and Padma at first — the seventh years who saw Liam come back and knew, understood that if it was this bad this quickly, they had to brace for so much worse.

Anthony is good at potions and starts stocking ingredients to common healing potions.

Morag starts teaching shield charms to anyone who will listen. Padma starts teaching herself healing spells.

Terry, meanwhile, befriends the younger students, makes sure they know they have someone to come to when it all starts to go to shit.

And go to shit it does.

…

By November, Padma is taking the fall for younger students to keep them out of detention.

Padma is the bravest of them all, no doubt about that — she could've been a Gryffindor like her sister, but for the fact that she's never valued bravery the way she does knowledge. Bravery is just a part of her, unquestionably.

Anthony has never considered himself brave. He does what needs doing.

Maybe, in times like these, that's a form of bravery.

Somehow, they all keep coming to him for advice.

The younger kids talk to Terry, when they're crying, because Terry is softness and warmth, but when they're angry, when they're fierce and furious and ready for something to change, they come to Anthony.

They come to Anthony and they find a mirrored rage in his own eyes.

…

In December, Morag asks him if it's good to be so angry all the time.

Anthony turns to her, his crimson heart beating in his hands because he can no longer hide all that he is, and he says, "I never said I was a good person, Morag."

"I know," she says. "That's what makes you the best sort."

In December, the holidays come and it feels like there's nothing to celebrate.

Anthony doesn't go home for Hanukkah because he doesn't want to leave any of the young Ravens alone, but he thinks about it a lot.

He thinks about how many times in history the world has told his people they are wrong for what they believe in.

He thinks about how they are still here, still living, still surviving.

He wonders if this is the same thing.

If he and his friends are the Maccabees and the Carrows are his foreign empire and this is their stand.

He never meant to be a hero but if this is his choice, if it is between standing by and letting them torture children or rebellion, then he will rebel without hesitation.

In January, Luna Lovegood doesn't come back.

She goes home for holidays and she doesn't come back and no one seems to know what happened to her.

"They took her off the train," Morag says.

And okay, Anthony and Luna have never really been _friends_ — the sixth year is incredibly odd and Anthony never knew how to relate to her — but she was strong in her own way and clever in the way that always surprised people, and he doesn't understand what it means that teenagers are being taken off the Hogwarts Express.

Then again, he doesn't know what _any_ of it means.

…

In February, Morag comes back from detention even paler and shakier than usual. Anthony hands her a potion for the after effects of the Cruciatus curse and she downs it without protest and then stares at the empty decanter.

"What do you do," she asks, "when there's nothing but pain left inside of you?" She turns to him, and her eyes are haunted. "What do you do then?"

Anthony doesn't know what to say.

He doesn't say anything at all. Instead, he just sits down next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders.

She turns her face into his shoulder so he can't see her tears.

When the streams stop, she looks at him, eyes red rimmed, and says, "They made me torture Colin Creevey. Because if I didn't, they'd do worse." She inhales deeply. "I still don't know if I did the right thing."

"You did the only thing you could do," Anthony says.

He thinks he would've made the same decision.

He hopes he never has to.

…

In March, they live on.

They take on the weight of the war and they bear it, because they can do nothing else.

...

In April, Neville Longbottom angers the Carrows more than ever trying to protect some of his own, and then he disappears.

Anthony wonders if he should be doing more.

But in the end, he thinks the best thing he can do for his house is be here. Be present. Not vanishing because of a move of desperation.

He's so angry.

But he reels his anger in and he only lets his desperation show with Morag and Padma and Terry, because they are his anchor.

Some nights he wakes up screaming, but Terry is there, always there, his voice low and gentle and Anthony doesn't know what he would do without him.

The world is falling apart, but at least he isn't alone.

…

In May, it comes to an end.

He and Padma and Michael and Terry all feel the moment when their enchanted coins from the DA burn and they know that this is it. This is the end.

They collect in the Great Hall and then suddenly they're scrambling to evacuate the younger students and they're fighting and everything is chaos and screaming and fire.

People are dying.

People he knows are dying.

And it feels impossible but he keeps going, asking his God for strength and knowing this is _right_.

He disarms a Death Eater and grins, sharp and fierce. Forged in the crucible of war, he does not break. He _blooms_.

And then it's over.

Voldemort is dead.

And it should feel like a victory but it doesn't, because he looks around and there are too many who have fallen.

That's when he sees her.

 _Padma_.

Padma, the bravest of them all, lying all-too-still on a table in the Great Hall.

Padma, who took more detentions than any of them because she was pulling attention away from the younger students.

Padma, who the Carrows tortured mercilessly.

She cannot be dead.

But she is.

Anthony falls to his knees.

He cries for all that she was and all that she should've been.

…

In June, the Carrows are sentenced to life in Azkaban.

It doesn't feel like enough.

A familiar rage boils beneath his skin as he thinks of all that they did.

As he thinks of Padma.

"They deserve death," he tells Morag.

She turns to him, her eyes calm.

"Do you play God, then? Carry their heads through the streets in triumph? That won't bring back the dead."

"No," he says. "But they may rest easier."

Her gaze flickers over his face.

"You wouldn't, really," she says.

He sighs.

"No," he says without doubt. "I wouldn't."

It doesn't change the fact that it doesn't feel like enough.

The war is over, but nothing can bring back what they've lost.

* * *

Writing Month:2253

Dragons: 2253

Seasonal: Days of the Year: Book Lover's Day: Write about a bookworm. Alt, set a story in Flourish and Blotts

Birthstones: Sapphire - (dialogue) "What do you do when there's nothing but pain left inside of you?"

Shay's Musical Challenge: Falsettos - write about a jew. alt, write about someone going to a psychiatrist

Gryffindor Themed Prompts: Trait: Heroic

Character App: 17. (trait) Intelligent

Book Club: Julian: (colour) crimson; (word) liar; (dialogue) "I never said I was a good person, [name]."

Showtime: 15. Raise You Up / Just Be - (word) Celebrate

Amber's Attic: 4. Come Gangsta: Write about someone proving themselves.

Buttons: W3: Encouragement

Lyric Alley: 14. Revealing the truth that was buried inside

AAA: Power Four — Write about a group of four friends.

Em's Emporium: C3. Cho Chang: Write a character study. Alt: Revolution!AU

Lo's Lowdown: D1: "Do you play God, carry his head through the corridors(/streets) in triumph? That won't bring back the dead." / "No. But they may rest easier."

Eagles: Anthony Goldstein: (object) coin (spell) Expelliarmus bonus

Friendship: 12. write about a friendship forged in difficult circumstances [e.g. war] (character), comforting someone after a nightmare (plot point), 'flowers bloom at midnight' (title), embrace (action)

Film Festival: 22. Word - Fierce & 26\. Action: Fighting in school

Hot Air Balloon: (Character) Anthony

Sherlock: tie

Debate: Minor Characters: Anthony

Chocolate Frogs: (Bronze): Merlin: Write about a loyal friendship.

Insane House: relationship: friends


End file.
